I came up with some new worksheets to go along with the unit. I was trying to find some things that both Hippo and Froggy could do. So the worksheets go in order from easier to harder. A little one will probably still need help, even if it’s just reading the directions! Here are some ideas of the worksheets:

There are even two word searches, one easy and one hard! Solutions to both word searches are also included 😉

Viel Spaß!

While I was working with Hippo last week on the letter M, I realized that still does not know all of his lower case letters! He was spelling some of the words with alphabet stickers, but he couldn’t use the letter cards as a model, because he did not know the lower case letters. Tja! So this week, I have the letter A cards in both upper and lower case letters to download 🙂

The words in this unit are:

der Aal eel

das Achteck octagon

der Adler eagle

der Affe monkey

das Ahornblatt maple leaf

die Ameise ant

die Ampel traffic light

die Ananas pineapple

die Anemone sea anemone

der Anker anchor

der Apfel apple

der Arm arm

The cards look like this:

As always, there are cards with images and words, just images, and just words. Although they are not shown here, I also have cards with words in all caps.

Of all things, Hippo found a mistake in my original cards! Somehow, I had the word card for Ampel with the wrong article. I have corrected the mistake and updated the files! (I did not update the image of the cards, but be assured – the PDF version is correct!)

I’m pretty well behind in posting all of the materials I’m creating for our German alphabet study. I’ll get as much up as I can. But I’m trying to make sure that I’m spending my time on teaching my kiddos and not just posting to the blog 🙂 Eventually, I’ll get everything posted!

We’ll be starting the letter M on Monday. So I have just finished up the vocabulary cards to go with our letter study. They look like this:

I’m late posting this! We already finished P-Week. But here are the vocabulary cards:

This is just a sample. There are 16 words this week. And as usual, there are cards with images and words, just images, and just words.

I added four extra words, so there are a few consonant blends (Prinz, Prinzessin, & Planet). Plus the word Pyramide is kind of tricky. We are sticking to the simple words this week. You can decide for yourself which ones you want to use!

Today was the first day of 2nd grade for Froggy. While homework won’t start coming home until next week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to piggyback some German work onto it.

For school, he’ll be expected to do about 10 minutes of math and 20 minutes of reading (that includes bedtime books, thankfully!). So I don’t want to do more than 10 minutes of German, or I know I’ll lose him.

I want to get back to basics with both kids, so I’ll be working on letters with Hippo and reading with Froggy.

I plan to start our day in German. The kids have been having German breakfasts with our au pair, so we’ll continue that. And I’m going to try to do some fun letter work with them at breakfast, too. We’ll have a letter of the week and different objects that represent that letter.

After school, I want to start us off by playing some educational games. I found a number of alphabet and reading games while I was in Germany this summer. Things like the Clever Spielen series.

I know I’ll keep their interest more if I can keep it fun!

The good news is that Froggy is taking an interest in learning more German. It always seems to happen when we are in Europe over the summer. Even being in the Netherlands seems to bring out his German – as if hearing another language activates his own second language, even though they are different! I just hope it lasts!

I also want to use up some of his homework reading time with German. The teachers were okay with that last year. So we’ll read some German books at bedtime, too.

Tonight we read a fun one by Erwin Moser called Das große Buch von Koko und Kiri. I just love his humor 🙂 Both boys needed help with comprehension here and there, but they got most of it!

I just stumbled on to a post about homework and bilingual children. For Emilia at Raising a Trilingual Child, it was more a question of which of the family’s three languages to speak when helping her children with their homework. It’s the kind of question most parents never think about. I know it would never occur to me to speak German while helping Froggy with his homework!

How do you work in lessons in your minority language when the kids go back to school? And what language do you speak with your children when helping them with their homework?

Our little Hippo started school last week! He is 3-and-a-half years old and will be going 3 half days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). I’m so happy – and relieved! – to say that his first week was a huge success! Froggy started 1st grade, and it was an easy transition. This morning, he informed Hippo that he wouldn’t go to school today, and Hippo completely slumped in his chair. Half of me wanted to hug him, since he was so sad, and the other half wanted to jump for joy that he likes school so much! 🙂

My goal is to do a project with Hippo on Monday mornings, since he isn’t in school. It’s a great way to spend some “quality”time together. When Froggy was 3, we used to do projects almost every day – crafts, art, science experiments, all kinds of fun things! And of course, I want to use it as an opportunity for a German lesson!

Today we borrowed an idea from Tippytoe Crafts: Name Trains! Here’s what we needed:

print-out of a locomotive and some tracks

colorful squares of paper

letter stencils

scissors

glue stick

crayons

black paper

small circle punch

large piece of paper (or a couple of sheets taped together)

I could have had Hippo just draw train tracks, but he hasn’t been into drawing or coloring lately. In fact, his locomotive remains black and white!

First, we glued the tracks down. Then the locomotive. Next, we started sounding out his name. I think he knows his letters well enough. But I was surprised that he could figure out which ones we needed next. Each letter “car”was glued on to the train. Then he glued on the wheels. He could have colored the letters and decorated the paper, but like I said, he’s just not into it right now.

After we finished the train, we practiced some color recognition. We even included braun and grau from the tracks!

Follow Blog via Email

Willkommen!

Hi there! I’m a non-native speaker of German raising my two boys to be bilingual.
Froggy was born in 2009 and is now starting 2nd grade.
Hippo was born in 2012 and is in his second year of pre-school.
My husband PER is from the Netherlands, but he doesn’t speak Dutch with the kids. Although he will read books in Dutch to them sometimes.
We have our 4th au pair (AP4) with us this year. She’s from Germany.
I’m often creating materials for the boys, and I wanted a way to share them with other German-speaking families. You can download all of the materials I post for FREE!